Herbert Marshall McLuhan CC
(July 21, 1911 - December 31, 1980) was a Canadian
educator, philosopher, and scholar — a professor of English
literature, a literary critic, and a communications
theorist. McLuhan's work is viewed as one of the
cornerstones of the study of media theory. He is known for
coining the expressions "the medium is the message" and the
"global village".
McLuhan was a fixture in media discourse from the late
1960s to his death and he continues to be an influential
and controversial figure. During his lifetime and
afterward, McLuhan heavily influenced cultural critics,
thinkers, and media theorists such as Neil Postman, Camille
Paglia, Timothy Leary, William Irwin Thompson, Paul
Levinson, Douglas Rushkoff, Jaron Lanier, and French
philosopher Jean Baudrillard, as well as political leaders
such as Pierre Elliott Trudeau and Jerry Brown. When asked
in the 70s for a way to sedate violences in Angola, he
suggested a massive spread of TV devices. McLuhan was named
as the "patron saint" of Wired Magazine and a quote of his
appeared on the masthead for the first ten years of its
publication.
